Dying For LA by Ian Jones (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

you can get another cheeseburger. The OC is actually ok here, unlike every other base I been on.’

‘Good deal.’

Turner sat back and rubbed his head with his hands and then looked at them both in turn.

‘Well alright. Let’s get this done.’

‘Thank you sir,’ Reed said and walked briskly across the room and opened the door. John nodded at Turner and followed the big man out.

‘Let’s get a coffee first,’ Reed said. ‘Keep him waiting another twenty minutes.’

‘Yeah, good idea. Fuck him if he can’t take a joke.’

***

Leo bought everybody breakfast in McDonald’s. Nobody really knew what to say, while Yann Voorhees would not be missed, for both Rico and Sal this was now a completely new start, and it was very clear that Greg and Rolf were equally unsure of what they were doing.

They sat around a table, painfully bright sunlight streaming in through big windows.

Leo ate fussily, looking closely at the food and making disparaging remarks about everything, while the others consumed their meals silently.

Rolf picked up a discarded newspaper from the table next to theirs and started reading, anything to be distracted from the position they were now in.

He looked at the headlines on the front page.

‘Police Hunt Intensifies’, and the following article had quotes from senior policemen on the hunt for the metro terrorists and suspects for the murder of the army major.

Leo followed his eyes across to the paper and smirked.

‘Yes, that went well I think didn’t it? Good way to use resource. Or I must say good way to LOSE resource. Was waste of time. Like everything so far. All wasting time. There is nothing to show. But now it change. Now it is real, we get what we want.’

Rico looked at Sal then sat up straight.

‘Look Leo, we were paid to follow orders. That’s it,’ he said deliberately, at least relatively safe sitting in the restaurant.

‘Or not paid,’ Sal interjected, feeling the same way.

Now was the time to speak, in a busy restaurant, surrounded by witnesses.

Leo wiped his mouth and sat back, sipping coffee. He looked at them steadily.

‘Paid? Paid for what? You have done nothing. There is no point saying to me, I am not your employer. I am the customer.’

‘What Sal is saying Leo, is that we have been here in LA a long time now. We haven’t been paid, apart from a few bucks here and there. We’ve done everything we were told to do. Everything. And there is a lot of cash back there, we saw it. My guess is that’s our wages, and it would be good to earn some money. And not just us, Greg and Rolf too,’ Rico told him earnestly.

Greg nodded appreciatively. Leo would surely not start anything in a crowded McDonald’s.

‘I will see,’ Leo replied dismissively. ‘But first you have to prove yourselves. Today we start. Then maybe tomorrow, next day, we all go home, and if I get what I want then you are paid. All of you.’

He stared out across the table, eyes glittering. Rico suddenly wanted to go home straight away.

He swallowed and nodded, thank drank his own coffee slowly, hoping to stay right where he was for as long as possible.

Chapter Thirty-Four

They had coffee in a small but very busy place a couple of buildings along from the MP headquarters. It was still the army, but done out just like a high street outlet and a lot cheaper. Reed was back in his uniform. John wondered where the hell the army got his shirts.

He got the call at last from Judy.

She was excited; the trace was live, finally. They should start to get results within a couple of hours, everything had to be passed through the FBI tech team first, and she had found some solid information on Pinsky. John’s phone beeped as soon as he hung up and he looked at it.

A reasonably recent picture of Leonid Pinsky along with some basic history.

Hi spun the phone round on the table and slid it across to Reed who studied it and frowned.

‘Jeez, ugly bastard!’

‘Yep, hopefully we will be meeting him the flesh before too long.’

This was welcome news, and now they finally had it they didn’t stay long, both men wanted to get on with it and soon they were back at the MP headquarters, the corporal pulled open the door then they walked down the steps and he unlocked the gate at the bottom.

They entered the outer room, everything was quiet. John walked across so he could see into the cellblock, but there was no sign of any activity. Reed joined him and then signalled to the corporal who unlocked the gate and stood back.

John walked in first, down to the end and looked in through the bars.

Keane was sitting on the bunk, staring at the floor. When he heard the footsteps he looked up, saw it was John then dropped his head again.

Reed walked across and shook the gate.

‘Morning Mr Keane,’ he said brightly.

Keane stood up slowly.

He had livid bruises across his face and a cut on his forehead. He looked tired and dishevelled, and a lot older than when he had been locked up yesterday.

‘So what now? This crap over? I get to go home?’ he asked wearily.

John smiled.

‘No Ron. You’re not going home, and you’re not leaving here. Not until we get answers. So you could be in here a long time, but maybe by now you’ve realised how serious we are. You need to understand that we know Ron, we know. Not everything, but we have put it together, and we have even more now from when we banged you up in here yesterday.’

The corporal appeared with two wooden chairs, set them down facing the cell then walked out again.

John and Reed both sat down.

‘This is such bullshit,’ Keane muttered, shaking his head.

‘It could be I guess, it could be,’ Reed replied. ‘But the facts speak for themselves. Everything that happened is down to you, you were the one doing the talking. But we know that.